The First UNESCO National Capacity Building Workshop for Cultural World Heritage in China

This five-day capacity building workshop to be held at the Old Town of Lijiang World Heritage site during 23-27 April 2018 is the first of a series to be co-organized by UNESCO Beijing Office and the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage (CACH) under the three-year national capacity building activity for cultural World Heritage in China. Bringing together 30 key managerial staff from the 14 most visited cultural World Heritage sites in China, the workshop aims to enhance the site management and monitoring capacity to achieve a balance between conservation and development. Based on the serial training workshops and research, a training materials package together with a mobile application are expected to be formulated to benefit the World Heritage community in China and globally.
In the framework of the UNESCO - China Youth Development Foundation Mercedes-Benz Star Fund Project on “Conservation and Management of World Heritage Sites in China” Phase III (2017-2020), UNESCO Beijing Office collaborates with the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage (CACH) to enhance the national capacity for the implementation of the 1972 World Heritage Convention.

This effort is in line with the UNESCO World Heritage strategy for capacity building and the 5C Strategy on capacity building. The three-year capacity building activities include annual high-quality and structured training-of-trainer (ToT) workshops, establishment of experience-sharing network, compilation of a training materials package and development of a mobile application.

The first workshop will take place between 23 and 27 April 2018 at the Old Town of Lijiang, a cultural World Heritage site inscribed in 1997. The theme of the workshop is the management and monitoring of cultural World Heritage sites as tourism hotspots. 30 selected site managers from the 14 most visited cultural World Heritage sites in China will participate in the workshop facilitated by top national scholars and professionals.

The overall expected output of this three-year capacity building activity is a best practice manual for the conservation and management of cultural World Heritage that can facilitate the replication and adaptation of this capacity building activity within and beyond China.